BISC Special Interest Group
on Interval Methods in Knowledge Representation (SIGInterval)

There is a Growing Interest in Interval Methods

Interval methods are naturally related to fuzzy research:
  1. Many operations with fuzzy numbers can be naturally implemented as operations with their alpha-cuts (i.e., intervals); not surprizingly, interval arithmetic is described in most modern textbooks on fuzzy logics and fuzzy systems;
  2. In many cases, it is more natural to use not numbers but intervals to describe the values of membership functions; the resulting interval-valued fuzzy sets are very helpful in expert systems, fuzzy control, pattern recognition, etc.
  3. Last but not the least: the interest in using interval methods is being revived by the Zadeh's idea of "granularity" as a unifying theme for several formalisms, including fuzzy and interval methods.
There is a growing interest in interval methods:
  1. Talks on interval methods in knowledge representation are actively present both at conferences in Interval Computations and at conferences on Fuzzy Systems. Several relevant workshops and special sections have been organized: e.g., during the 1993 Interval Computations conference, the 1994 NASA/NAFIPS, etc.
  2. New papers appear all the time in journals and conference proceedings: the recently started special section on interval methods in IJUFKS (International Journal on Fuzziness, Uncertainty, and Knowledge-Based Systems) already has a backlog of abstracts of different relevant papers.
  3. Lots of relevant papers appear in the interval journal Reliable Computing and in the special NIFS journal specifically devoted to interval-related intuitionistic fuzzy sets. A recently announced IJUFKS special issue on interval methods is already filled with high-quality papers.

There is a Need to Organize Ourselves

Researchers who do research in interval methods in knowledge representation come from different backgrounds: mainly from fuzzy systems and from interval methods. As a result, we are often unaware of previous work, and we spend quite some time re-inventing the notions and results that are already well known in other areas. People who do similar research can definitely profit from a more active interaction. Workshops and special sections are in order.

Journal editors would definitely appreciate having a list of people who are interested in interval methods so that interval-related papers could be sent to referees knowledgeable in the corresponding areas.

Initiative Group

The idea of organizing a special interest group re-appeared during several recent fuzzy and interval meetings. Here is a list of people who have so far expressed interest in coordinating this group (in alphabetic order):

Krassimir Atanassov(Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria)
James Buckley(University of Alabama)
Janusz Kacprzyk(Polish Academy of Science)
Ladislav Kohout(Florida State University, Tallahassee)
Vladik Kreinovich(University of Texas at El Paso)
Weldon Lodwick(University of Colorado at Denver)
Alex Meystel(National Institute of Standards and Technology)
Patricia Nava(University of Texas at El Paso)(Secretary)
Hung T. Nguyen(New Mexico State University)
I. Burhan Turksen(University of Toronto, Canada)

Mailing List

A special SIGInterval mailing list is set up.

Problems concerning the list itself should be reported to Vladik Kreinovich at vladik@utep.edu (but not to the list).

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